


ask me no questions

by ephemera (incognitajones)



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: F/M, Kissing, Mission Fic, Rebelcaptain Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22040047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incognitajones/pseuds/ephemera
Summary: Cassian can feel Jyn's breathing quick with anxiety, feel her lips moving against the angle where his neck and shoulder meet. This whole mission—every millisecond they’ve spent so far on Ord Mantell—seems to have been designed to stress test his self-control within an inch of its life.
Relationships: Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso
Comments: 53
Kudos: 289
Collections: The RebelCaptain Network Secret Santa Exchange





	ask me no questions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [csectumsempra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/csectumsempra/gifts).



> For [@cassianserso](https://cassianserso.tumblr.com/) in the 2019 Rebelcaptain Secret Santa exchange. 
> 
> I interpreted the prompt ( _I’ll face my fear of the sunrise / when I wake up with your hand inside mine_ ) pretty loosely, but I also tried to put in as many of your likes—undercover & espionage, mission fics, anything that involves action—as possible. I hope you enjoy it!

Early afternoon is a slow time at the spaceport on Ord Mantell, and the mag train out is nearly empty. That means fewer people around to notice Jyn and Cassian arriving; it also means no crowd to blend in with, and more chance of them standing out to anyone who might be watching. 

They stay standing, close to the doors for the quickest possible exit. Jyn is playing the clingy girlfriend to the hilt with her arms looped over Cassian’s shoulders. As the train accelerates away from the stop, pushing them into each other, her grip around his neck tightens and he anchors her with one arm at her waist. She turns her head into his chest to hide her face from the camera in the corner of the ceiling. Her breath is warm on his collarbone when she whispers, “Two troopers and a security droid just boarded the next car.” 

He grins at her as though she’s just said something funny, and she giggles—Jyn Erso _giggling_ , there’s a sound he never knew he wanted to hear—and brushes her hand over his hair and down the nape of his neck. Though she’s barely touching him, the sensation races through his nerves like a flame.

The troopers shouldn’t be a problem. As for the security droid, that depends on how sensitive its scanners are. If it can pick up that both he and Jyn are carrying a lot more unregistered credit chips than they should be… that could be an issue. He shifts his feet and turns just a little, moving Jyn with him so that more of her is shielded from view.

The door to the next car hisses open as the troopers and the droid enter. Jyn tenses against him, ready for a fight. He knows she has at least two knives on her, plus something sharp and lethal hidden in the knot of her hair. She slides her arms down, around his waist, slipping them under his jacket to get her right hand closer to the blaster in a holster concealed at his back. If she had to, she could draw and shoot faster than he could… but if she has to do that, their mission will be fucked. 

The troopers demand scandocs from another passenger and Cassian can feel his pulse pick up, thumping in his ears until it seems louder than the rhythmic noise of the train. His right hand moves to Jyn’s hip, his thumb resting lightly on the handle of the knife sheathed there. Her body goes rigid, unbreathing. Without thinking, he strokes his other hand down her back in an automatic gesture of reassurance. It startles her instead; her fists tighten in his shirt and her breath catches in a way that sends another trail of electricity sparking down his spine. 

But the troopers and the droid move past them, through their car and into the next, without asking to see their documentation. Cassian releases the tension in his muscles with a slow breath. He doesn’t know whether it’s disappointment or relief he feels when Jyn unwinds her arms from around his waist and straightens up, no longer leaning on him.

They’re in this city full of crooked customs officers and cunning smugglers to bid on a large shipment of some extremely useful ordnance that fell off the back of a shuttle. Detonite tape, seismic charges, high-yield thermite… it’s a banquet of lethal explosives. If they can get it, it will boost the Alliance’s tactical strike capacity for months. But dealing with the black market is always risky and complicated. Jyn had to create fresh identities for both of them just to get on this Imperial-occupied planet, and it took the Alliance days to scrape together enough hard, untraceable credit chips for the purchase. These are desperate times, and Cassian is desperately hoping they can pull off the buy. 

They were told to go to the biggest Black Sun cantina in town and wait. The bouncer at the door slipped Cassian a palm-sized datapad which he’s watching out of the corner of his eye, hoping for it to light up with an alert that their bid was accepted and directions for where to drop the payment. After that, they’ll pass the coordinates of the goods on to the Rebel cargo hauler waiting to load it. 

He and Jyn are here only to pay and get out; the less they know about anything else, the better. Their current IDs are two semi-legitimate pilots, looking to pick up work. On Ord Mantell, it’s more suspicious not to have any arrests on your record, but Jyn was careful to limit their priors to small stuff—nothing that should trip any closer scrutiny. He hopes.

From his position on this convenient mezzanine he can watch the entire crowd, scanning for anything odd, though his attention wanders back to Jyn again and again. She’s laughing flirtatiously with the Twilek standing next to her at the bar in a very un-Jyn like fashion; but he recognizes the way she slips away from their touch, elusive and quicksilver, as soon as she’s been served.

The first thing most Rebels learn about Jyn (often at the wrong end of an armlock) is that she doesn’t like to be pinned down. Cassian was surprised, because she never seemed to mind when he touched her back or tapped her elbow. And then he felt weirdly shy about doing it, wondering whether it meant something. Eventually he decided it meant that she trusted him, because she knew him, no more than that: a good thing to keep in mind after the way he reacted on the mag train.

Cassian honestly can’t tell whether Jyn cares for him. Which ought to be ridiculous, since his life often depends on figuring out what people think, what they want, or how they feel. But Jyn is inherently reserved, guarded, and for good reason. He’d never call her inexpressive—she knows how to make her opinions heard—but she keeps her emotions tightly shielded. 

Then she’ll save him a piece of his favourite fruit, or bring back a warmer sweater for him from her next trip offworld, and he knows that she cares for him. He just doesn’t know whether she cares for him in the way he wishes she might.

It doesn’t matter. It won’t kill him, which puts it in the category of problems he’s better off not thinking too much about. Cassian has been through much worse; a little emotional ache is more than bearable, especially when it comes from spending time with Jyn.

The ceiling in this place is high, but it’s still dim and hard to see much thanks to the strange lighting: floating, luminous balloons that drift aimlessly across the space, with no discernible pattern in the way they move and cluster. They must be controlled by some kind of random algorithm. It creates an interesting effect, shadowy one moment and then, as an orb or two floats overhead trailing light, suddenly much brighter. But it’s about the most nerve-wracking experience imaginable for a spy. Cassian can’t predict when he’ll be exposed and when he’ll be hidden. He makes himself breathe slowly, trying to relax the knot between his shoulderblades. 

Jyn climbs the stairs toward him, carrying two drinks, and joins him at the railing, leaning against it as she passes one to him. She grumbles softly, frowning up at the lights. He leans down automatically to hear her better, and his nose brushes the top of her ear. 

“Who came up with this nonsense?” she complains. One of the globes sails slowly by, burnishing her hair to a deep polished mahogany and reflecting brightly in her eyes. 

“It’s distracting,” Cassian agrees. In more ways than one.

Jyn’s wearing more eye makeup than usual. Her hands are bare, without her normal fingerless gloves, and she’s had fake nails applied in a dark scarlet colour like drying blood. They match the silky top she’s wearing, artfully arranged to reveal as little of her scars as possible while also showing quite a lot of skin. She borrowed his leather jacket, and it looks damned good on her. 

She looks very different, but her body language is the same. Cassian’s found that the best way to read Jyn’s mood is to watch her hands: if she’s twisting them together, or rubbing her palms against her thighs; if she’s reaching for the crystal around her neck. Each little gesture tells him something. Right now she’s anxious, like him; he can see it in the way she flexes the fingers of her right hand and then tenses them as though preparing to wrap them around the grip of a blaster. Cassian is resolutely not thinking about what they would feel like tracing up his arm, down his back… 

Another globe joins the one overhead, and another, putting them at the centre of a temporary spotlight. He shifts automatically, turning his face from the light, and reaches for Jyn just as she grabs his hand. Her grip is tight as they move into a patch of darkness, and she presses her face into his chest again. “I think I saw someone I used to know,” she mutters. 

Stay calm, Cassian tells himself. They’ve talked about this; it’s always a consideration for undercover missions, but not often a serious problem. As long as you’re confident enough, most people can be convinced that they’re wrong, that you’re not who they think you are. Unless they knew you very well. “Someone we need to worry about?” he asks.

Jyn shrugs, but the lines in her forehead are still tight with worry. “They wouldn't remember me fondly. And we were pretty well highlighted for a second there.”

He can feel her breathing quick with anxiety, feel her lips moving against the angle where his neck and shoulder meet. This whole mission—every millisecond they’ve spent so far on Ord Mantell—seems to have been designed to stress test Cassian’s self-control within an inch of its life. 

He rests his chin on the top of Jyn’s head and scans the room again. A human male, big and bulky in a padded vest that pings all of Cassian’s radar about concealed weapons, is staring at them. Cassian lets his gaze pass over the man as though he were just aimlessly watching the crowd. 

He rests his hand at the small of Jyn’s back, just for comfort, a reminder that he’s here with her. But at the light touch, she shifts forward a tiny fraction, and suddenly the whole line of her body is flush against his, strong and warm. 

Cassian’s breath halts in his lungs. All of the lights have temporarily drifted away from this spot and they’re in a pool of darkness. He can barely see Jyn, but he can feel every centimetre of her with perfect clarity even through all the layers of their clothes. He doesn’t ever want to let her go. 

If Cassian thought he was still before, now he’s immobile, frozen in place as though in carbonite. So is Jyn. She’s barely breathing, shallow puffs hardly touching his skin.

“Is he still watching?”

“Yes,” Cassian murmurs in her ear. 

“Make it look good,” she hisses. Her hands, which have been loosely hooked in his belt, slide up his back to his shoulders and tug him closer. Cassian barely has time to suck in one panicked gulp of air before her lips are pressed to his. On autopilot, he brings his hands up to hold Jyn’s face, cradling her jaw and tilting her head to align them better. 

This isn’t real. It’s an act, just a quick kiss to sell the illusion. Jyn’s lips are barely touching his, light but stiff and unmoving. Cassian doesn’t open his mouth to hers and taste her. But he wants to, Force, he wants to. He drags his mouth away, across her cheek, and presses it against the side of her neck, which has the advantage of taking him away from her maddeningly tempting lips. Jyn’s fingers dig into his back when he does, and he wonders—is she still acting, or does that mean she likes it? Does she want to feel his mouth moving down her throat, biting softly at the thin skin he can feel her pulse shaking through— 

He jerks away from her, blinking in a sudden bar of blinding light from a trooper’s wrist lamp, and disoriented in a way that ought to be convincing, because he didn’t even see it coming. Shavit, what an idiot he is.

Fortunately, Jyn keeps her head. “Hey!” she snaps at the white-helmeted intruder. “What the fuck? Do you _mind_?”

“This is a spot check. Show us your documents.”

Cassian makes himself smile ingratiatingly. No troublemakers here, just a couple of people looking for a quiet place to make out. “Uh, sir, I really don’t want my wife to find out about this, so if you wouldn’t mind just kicking us out without writing it up—”

“Your _wife_?!” Jyn shrieks, and shoves him, hard. He lets himself stumble backward into the railing. “You asshole!”

She turns to the trooper, doing her best to drag them into the argument too. “Can you believe it? He never said anything about being married! I want out of here, now.” 

Even through the bulky white mask, Cassian can almost see the trooper’s eyes rolling, and a heavy mechanized sigh escapes from their vocoder. “You’re free to go, ma’am.”

Jyn shoves past them toward the stairs, and Cassian takes the opportunity to follow her. 

“Lynessa!” he pleads, putting as much of a whine into his voice as he can. “Come on, Lynessa, let me explain…” She stalks away without a look over her shoulder. 

The trooper puts one arm out to block his path, but lets it fall almost immediately with another defeated sigh. Cassian almost feels sorry for them; garrison duty on a planet like this must be a punishment assignment. 

He follows Jyn, begging like a man who knows he’s in the wrong but still thinks he deserves a second chance. With Jyn stalking away from him, her spine drawn up tight and angry, it’s not hard to sound panicked and anxious.

Jyn turns around and plants her hands on her hips, eyes narrowed. She points her finger at his chest and loudly tells him to do something anatomically impossible and very colourful.

Just then, the datapad in his hand lights up, text glowing against the dark screen. The seller’s willing to take the Alliance’s cash; they just have to leave it in a certain locker at the closest mag train station. They’ve been given half the docking coordinates of the shipment, and the rest will come when the locker is shut. Jyn peers at it with him and they both sigh with relieved happiness. She throws her arms around him, grins up him with happiness lighting her face. Just like a happy reunion.

The drop is thankfully simple. The dingy corridor lined with temporary lockers is easy enough to find, and they leave the stack of unregistered credit chips in the one they were instructed to use. The second half of the coordinates comes through almost immediately. Cassian forwards them to the waiting cargo ship and drops the datapad in the closest recycler, breaking it in half first for good measure. 

The next train pulls in a few seconds later and they get on, carried along on the stream of passengers boarding. The peak of the evening rush has hit; it’s crowded with people headed home from cantinas or to the spaceport for third shift. The car is jammed and there are no free seats. Not that Cassian could sit anyway, but he’s so tired now that he’d at least pretend to consider it. His back and legs are starting to ache the way they do at the end of a much longer day, or just from all the tension he’s been holding in. 

Jyn leans in and rests her head on his chest, wrapping her arms around his waist. Cassian knows it’s to keep anyone else from noticing his holster in the tight quarters, and because this way the two of them have sightlines for nearly 360 degrees—Jyn can keep an eye out for whatever might be coming up behind him. It still jolts him with how much he wants it to be real: Jyn casually embracing him, just because, with no motive other than wanting to be close to him.

He sighs out a long slow breath, and Jyn murmurs into his jacket, “What’s wrong?”

He dips his head closer to her to speak. He doesn’t let his mouth brush her ear, but he can smell the warm scent of her hair. “Just tired.”

She nods. “Long night.” And she holds him just a little bit tighter, as he leans into her just a little bit more. 

Safety is a relative term. But once they finish the circuitous route to shake any potential followers, doublecheck the alarm sensors, and lock the door of the tiny bolt hole behind them, they’re as safe as they can be on Ord Mantell. 

Cassian shrugs his jacket off, feeling his shoulders rise as though he’s just shed the weight of something much heavier, and hangs it up along with the holstered blaster. Jyn vanishes into the fresher and comes out in a loose, shapeless shirt, with her face scrubbed clean and her hair tied back in a simple tail. She throws herself on the dusty sofa. “Any word?”

“Not yet.” It’s still early, though. He won’t worry until a few more hours have passed without an update on the shipment. 

“First watch or second?” she asks. 

“First,” he tells her. Though she looks like she wants to argue for a moment, in the end she just nods and rolls over on the couch. He drops a tattered blanket over her on his way to the fresher and when he comes out, she’s swathed in it up to her ears.

He sits down at the uneven table that won’t stop wobbling despite a broken datachip wedged under one leg. He takes out a datapad and stares at it without registering most of the words on the screen. At least the shipment is eventually reported as picked up without incident and en route, which is three-quarters of the way to a successful mission. 

Cassian is exhausted, but he won’t have any trouble staying awake for half the night. He remembers—he can’t stop thinking about—how soft the skin of Jyn’s neck was, how his hands shook as they moved over her. He could still feel the muscle of her back under his palms, the heat of her against his lips pressed tight to her skin, desperate to open and taste her. 

His head aches with sleeplessness; his heart hurts with want. _Upset because your partner’s better at faking it than you are? Get over it, Andor._ He props his head in his hands and tries to concentrate on the text blurring and shifting before his eyes.

He looks over at the couch again and finds Jyn awake this time, her eyes shining with reflected light from the dim fixture over his head.  
“It’s past midnight. Were you ever going to wake me up?” she asks, sharp and irritated. 

He shrugs. “I’m still awake.”

“We’re partners,” she grumbles. “And that means we share the watch.” Is she truly angry? Her hands aren’t telling him anything at the moment; they’re just curled around the edge of the blanket. Then she sits up and yawns, the muscles in her arms shifting as she stretches unselfconsciously. Cassian looks away, back to his datapad, and tries to type in a few more words.

“It also means you should tell me what’s been bothering you.” 

Cassian’s hand slips and the table rattles. He can’t say nothing is wrong; Jyn won’t believe that. But maybe he can deflect the question, get her to tell him what she thinks. “What do you mean?”

She stares back at him with dark, heavy-lidded eyes, her hair tousled from sleep. “You’ve been weird all night.” Suddenly her nerve seems to break and she looks away, down at her hands. Now they’re clasped between her knees and she’s picking absently at one fake nail. “If it’s because I pushed things too far at the club, I’m sorry. I thought you were okay with it. There wasn’t really anything else we could’ve done—”

“Jyn,” he cuts her off. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“Then what is it?” She seems to deflate a bit, her shoulders drooping. 

“I—this was just a difficult mission for me. Nothing to do with you.” And that is the truth; it’s all him.

“Difficult,” she repeats, chewing the word over in her mouth. “Why?”

Because it made him want things he can’t have. “Maybe this wasn’t the right cover.”

“So it _was_ the kissing.”

He throws up his hands and in desperation tells the truth. “It was. But not—I mean—only because I was having trouble remembering it was an act.”

He can’t look at her. If only Cassian was capable of saying something more... but maybe he doesn’t have to. Jyn seems to understand what he means. 

She gets up, crossing the tiny room in two strides to stand in front of him. She cups his face in her hands, and his heart is already pounding, his skin burning where she touches him. She leans down, slowly, giving him plenty of time to pull away. Instead he puts his hands at her waist and draws her closer. Their lips brush against each other lightly, tentatively, barely harder than they did earlier, but the difference is indescribable. The real thing is—incendiary. Breathtaking. 

She slides into his lap, straddling his thighs on the chair, and he grips her hips to keep her there as her lips stay pressed to his. Cassian wants to taste all of Jyn, but he can’t tear his mouth away from hers yet, so his hands go seeking: they roam up her back to tangle in her loose hair, and when she gasps into his mouth and arches closer, he does it again. Her lips are bruising now, her grasp tight on his shoulders, and he groans when she bites at his throat, little nips that make him jerk up against her.

The datapad on the table chimes just then, fortunately, or both of them might have utterly forgotten where they were. They draw apart reluctantly, Jyn resting her forehead against Cassian’s as he picks up the pad to show her: mission successful, shipment received by an Alliance cruiser. 

“Good. Now it’s your turn to sleep.” She combs her fingers through his hair in a way that makes him want to purr and rub against her hand. “And I mean sleep,” she adds. “You need the rest.”

She gets off his lap and pulls him to his feet. tugging him toward the couch. Cassian lets her arrange him to her satisfaction and put the blanket over him, but when she moves to get up he hangs on to her wrist. 

“Stay here?” he manages to get out, his voice thick with sleep and want.

“Yes.” There’s a light in her eyes stronger than a smile. She takes his hand in her strong grip, warm and rough, and rests her head against his shoulder. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

And she is.


End file.
